D. Venkatasubramanian wrote:
BTW, if you say Linux is good, then how do you define "Good", good is a qualitative term, and it has to be relative to something that is bad. So, how do you call something "Good" unless you don't discuss the "Bad" constructively? Think about it ...
For me programming is not just a way to pay the bills. It is a significant a part of my life and I am a bit philosophical about it. Your email has touched a very "philosophical bone" in me and hence I am going to lecture about the "good" and the "bad" a bit.
First, if you have not read the book "Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance" By Robert M Pirsig, you should put your hands on it. It has the best definition of Quality that I have come across. Here is an excerpt from the book.
--- Start quote ---
A few days later he worked up a definition of his own and put it on the blackboard to be copied for posterity. The definition was: "Quality is a characteristic of thought and statement that is recognized by a nonthinking process. Because definitions are a product of rigid, formal thinking, quality cannot be defined."
The fact that this "definition" was actually a refusal to define did not draw comment.
[SNIP]
But then, below the definition on the blackboard, he wrote, "But even though Quality cannot be defined, you know what Quality is!" and the storm started all over again.
[SNIP]
Their question now was "All right, we know what Quality is. How do we get it?"
[SNIP]
He singled out aspects of Quality such as unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on; kept each of these as poorly defined as Quality itself, but demonstrated them by the same class reading techniques. He showed how the aspect of Quality called unity, the hanging-togetherness of a story, could be improved with a technique called an outline. The authority of an argument could be jacked up with a technique called footnotes, which gives authoritative reference. Outlines and footnotes are standard things taught in all freshman composition classes, but now as devices for improving Quality they had a purpose. And if a student turned in a bunch of dumb references or a sloppy outline that showed he was just fulfilling an assignment by rote, he could be told that while his paper may have fulfilled the letter of the assignment it obviously didn't fulfill the goal of Quality, and was therefore worthless.
--- End quote ---
Customizing this definition for our needs of defining "good" software, the characteristics of good software are -
consistency, stability, economy in user interface, fail in a graceful manner, not waste CPU cycles. I am sure you will be able to add more.
So yes, we can discuss "good" without discussing the "bad".
Regards -- / \__ ( @\___ Raj Shekhar / O My home : http://geocities.com/lunatech3007/ / (_____/ My blog : http://lunatech.journalspace.com/ /_____/ U
_______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
